‘The white houses near the road – those are the weavers’ houses,’ she hissed. ‘The middle door. Ask for Olivier Fleury.’
I nodded briskly, dismounted and handed her my horse’s reins. The little street was empty, but I glanced around uneasily, imagining curious eyes behind the glass of every window. Surely it was not unusual for the French weavers to receive visitors, I told myself; I must shake off this conviction that everyone regarded us as suspicious or I would cause them to do so by my behaviour.
Stiffly I approached the low doorway of the middle house and knocked, pulling the cloth down from my face with the other hand as I did so. Through the open windows I could hear sounds of industry: the rhythmic clicking of wood against wood, a clanking of metal, the odd muted voice, sharp, as if giving instruction or calling out some demand. A hot, heavy smell drifted out; steam and wet wool and some other ingredient I could not identify. I knocked again and eventually the door was opened and I jumped back in surprise.
A tall, wiry youth, barely into his twenties, stood in the doorway, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. He looked at me, suspicion in his eyes. There was a faint hint of arrogance in his expression that sowed a seed of dislike in me. Nonetheless, I smiled graciously.
‘Olivier Fleury?’
‘Who wants him?’
He spoke in French, so I replied in kind.
‘An old friend.’
He considered me for a moment.
‘I have never seen you before, monsieur.’
He possessed that combination of sullen carelessness and self-regard that I had observed often among the French courtiers, though it seemed misplaced in the son of émigré weavers. But if I was honest, I found myself disliking this Olivier because, despite his sulky expression, he was undeniably handsome. His dark brown hair was cropped short and his skin was tanned, making his blue eyes appear all the more vivid. He had a manner of looking at you from under hooded lids with his head tilted back that implied disdain, and his full lips were set in a permanent pout. I could see how a young woman of twenty, trapped in a cruel marriage, might choose to seek solace in the company of a sympathetic youth with a face like this. Though I was unsure of the details of their friendship, I wished I did not have to deliver Sophia directly into his home, and fleetingly considered the possibility of taking her to stay with me at the inn instead. Reluctantly, I was obliged to concede that her safety was more important than my jealousy.
‘The friend I speak of is a young man of your acquaintance recently returned from London, on personal business.’ I gave him a meaningful look; his blue eyes registered first confusion, then slowly widened in disbelief as he leaned forward on the step, bunching his apron in his fist, his gaze anxiously searching the street to left and right. I nodded to my left; he pulled the door to behind him and followed me around the bend in the lane to where Sophia sat, still mounted, holding my horse by his reins.
If there had been some connection deeper than friendship between them, however, their initial response gave no indication of it. Olivier stared up at the ragged figure on the horse, her face barely visible between the cloth mask and the cap, then took a step backwards with a minute shake of his head, as if trying to deny to himself the evidence of his own eyes. Sophia merely returned his look, her eyes glints of light in the shadow that obscured her expression. Olivier’s frown of confusion hardened into anger as she slid awkwardly from the saddle and led her horse and mine a few paces towards us.
‘Why is she here?’ Olivier hissed through bared teeth, turning to me with a flash of fury. ‘This is madness.’
‘There was no choice,’ I began, but it was clear he wasn’t listening. He seemed genuinely afraid as he fixed his eyes again on Sophia.
‘Olivier,’ Sophia whispered, stepping closer. ‘This is my friend Bruno. He is going to find my husband’s killer and clear my name. But I had to come back to help him.’
She raised her eyebrows and nodded earnestly, as if this might persuade him. Olivier pushed both hands through his hair. He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled slowly, still staring at her as if she were insane.
‘Who else knows you are here?’ he asked her, in English.
‘We have only just this moment ridden through the city gate,’ I offered.
He shook his head again and glanced quickly up the lane.
‘Get inside the house, then, before anyone sees you. This will kill my mother, you know,’ he added in French, turning his scowl on me, as if it were all my fault.
‘I am sorry for any distress to your family,’ I said, feeling that to placate him would aid us best. ‘But she would not be safe anywhere else.’
‘She would be safe in London,’ he hissed back. ‘That was the whole point.’
‘Better you don’t fight about it in the street,’ Sophia murmured, with remarkable calm, handing me the halters of both horses as she slipped past Olivier into the doorway of his house. He glared at me again.
‘For one night, then. But we will speak further.’
‘I would be glad to, if you tell me where to find you,’ I said, still trying to deflect his anger with civility. I could understand how disconcerted he must feel, having thought he was free of any danger from his association with Sophia; to conceal a fugitive criminal was, as I understood the English law, itself a hanging offence. For a refugee family who had already escaped religious persecution, sought a quiet life and risked their good name once out of kindness, being expected to repeat that same sacrifice might seem an excessive test of their faith. If I had been gratified at first to see that neither Sophia nor Olivier showed any obvious pleasure at being reunited, such sentiments were quickly supplanted by a sense of shame at my own triviality.
‘Come back tomorrow morning,’ he muttered, darting another nervous glance over my shoulder, towards the end of the lane and the main street beyond. ‘My family and I will decide what to do by then.’
‘Tomorrow, then. And you take care of her,’ I added, just to let the boy know that I too had a vested interest. He took a step closer; he was taller than I, and drew himself up to emphasise this advantage.
‘We all want to keep her safe, monsieur. My family and friends risked everything to get her away from this place. Now you bring her back.’ He brought his face closer to mine and glared from beneath lowered brows, so fiercely it seemed he hoped I would burn up from the force of his eyes. ‘As if we did not have enough grief here already.’ Then he turned and disappeared inside the house, slamming the door behind him.
I looked around carefully at the windows of the neighbouring houses in case anyone had witnessed our exchange, but there was no obvious sign of movement. Even so, I felt distinctly uneasy as I led the horses back towards the main street, as if hostile eyes were following me, marking my steps.
I stabled the horses at the Cheker of Hope Inn, a great sprawling place that occupied most of the corner between the High Street, as I learned the main thoroughfare was called, and Mercery Lane, a smaller street that led towards the cathedral. The inn was one of the few that still seemed to attract a healthy trade; Sophia had recommended it because of its size; it was three storeys high, and built around a wide yard that often hosted performances by companies of travelling players. Despite my accent, the landlady – a heavily rouged woman in her forties – gave me an appreciative look when I secured the room; from the way her eyes travelled over me, I gathered she was pleased with more than the sight of the coins in my purse. I deflected her questions as politely as I could, hoping that here, with more travellers coming and going, I might enjoy greater anonymity than in the smaller places we had stayed in along the road, where everyone wants to know your business.
My stomach still felt dangerously unsettled – entirely my own fault, I suspected. The heat of the room during the previous night had brought on such a thirst that in desperation I had drunk some of the water